Monthly Archives: July 2011

Supervalu executives reportedly refused to meet with the workers and filed a civil lawsuit July 18 requesting damages against the small nonprofit workers center that supported the action: Trabajadores Unidos en Lucha (CTUL). via Giant Supervalu Grocery Chain Sues Small Workers Center – Working In These Times. No matter what they do they won’t be able…

“The debt ceiling is out of the way, but the current picture is far from rosy,” said Ajay Rajadhyaksha, head of United States fixed-income and securitized strategy at Barclays Capital. “Economic growth is so much weaker than many people thought just six months ago, and we are heading into a period of austerity.” via Optimism…

The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating allegations that Wells Fargo discriminated against African American borrowers, according to news reports. The allegations assert that the bank directed African-American borrowers to high-interest, subprime mortgages. via Report: Wells Fargo investigated over allegations of discriminatory lending. I’ve heard stories like this over the past three years or so…

The recall primary and general election results have shaken the confidence of Gov. Scott Walker and Wisconsin Republicans — so much so that the governor was on right-wing talk radio last week decrying his critics as “almost anarchists.” via Teamster Nation: WI RECALL: Is Walker losing it?. Did Scott Walker and the Wisconsin Republicans actually…

From the pages of history and the beginning of the atomic age comes a story of why journalism is so important. In The Woman Who Knew Too Much: Alice Stewart and the Secrets of Radiation by Gayle Greene we learn about the audacity of industry and government to cover-up the truth. When Tokyo Radio announced that people who entered…

This isn’t an idle concern or a typical bureaucratic tussle. The State Department has hired private security for its diplomats in war zones for the better part of a decade. Poor control of them caused one of the biggest debacles of the Iraq war: the September 2007 shooting incident in Nisour Square, where Blackwater guards…

Emanuel, who was in New York for an Obama fundraiser when the news broke, has maintained that where the couple send their children to school is a personal, not a political, decision. But the choice led inevitably to criticism that city leaders who send their children to private schools have no personal stake in Chicago’s…

Health and environmental groups have mounted a campaign against Bath & Body Works, urging the retailer to stop selling its line of “Summertime Scent” soaps that contain triclosan, a chemical categorized as a pesticide. Scientific studies have linked triclosan to hormone disruption, which could be hazardous to teenagers whose bodies are still developing. via Is…

Despite fire-and-brimstone opposition to taxes among many in a state that still has “Heart of Dixie” on its license plates, officials never stopped collecting a property tax that once funded the Alabama Confederate Soldiers Home, which closed 72 years ago. The tax now pays for Confederate Memorial Park, which sits on the same 102-acre tract…